August 2011

Donna Shalala, who served for eight years as Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton has been President of the University of Miami since 2001.

First, Shalala’s history with powerful men.

Soon after the sex allegations about Clinton’s involvement with White House intern Monica Lewinsky broke, Clinton had a meeting with his cabinet. Afterwards they met the press on the White House lawn.

Clinton did meet this morning with his Cabinet and afterward, his appointees voiced their support. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said, “I believe the allegations are completely untrue.” Commerce Secretary William Daley added “I’ll second that. Definitely.” “Third it,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala.
Albright and the other Cabinet members said the president told them “to remain focused on our jobs.”

Shalala’s tenure as President of the University of Miami.

At Miami, Shalala claimed to always be on alert for violations against NCAA rules.

Again, others might not laugh. At Miami, president Donna Shalala personally hires each coach. She studies the NCAA rulebook and weekly compliance reports. During football games, she scours the sidelines for suspicious guests. “I’m on alert all the time,” she says.

Obviously not too alert. The photo below belies Shalala’s claims. She is gazing down at a $50,000 check from Hurricanes booster Nevin Shapiro who is now in jail and has been singing like a bird.

In 100 hours of jailhouse interviews during Yahoo! Sports’ 11-month investigation, Hurricanes booster Nevin Shapiro described a sustained, eight-year run of rampant NCAA rule-breaking, some of it with the knowledge or direct participation of at least seven coaches from the Miami football and basketball programs. At a cost that Shapiro estimates in the millions of dollars, he said his benefits to athletes included but were not limited to cash, prostitutes, entertainment in his multimillion-dollar homes and yacht, paid trips to high-end restaurants and nightclubs, jewelry, bounties for on-field play (including bounties for injuring opposing players), travel and, on one occasion, an abortion.

As school president, she is involved in the Nevin Shapiro sports recruiting scandal which broke in August 2011. Shapiro, who is convicted of a $930 million Ponzi scheme, allegedly provided cash, goods, prostitutes, and assorted favors to University of Miami football players and even purchased a yacht on which sex parties were held, again including prostitutes. 72 players have been implicated. Included in the case is a photograph of Shalala with Shapiro and Miami basketball coach Frank Haith receiving a $50,000 check from Shapiro in 2008. In an interview with time magazine earlier in August 2011, Shalala is quoted by Time as saying that such depravity “would not have lasted two minutes under me,” and that under her leadership there would be “no tolerance for breaking the rules.” [6] There is currently speculation that the scandal may prompt the NCAA to impose the death penalty on Miami’s famed football program.[7][8]

Guess Shalala’s been “thirding it” all along. She can’t tell those powerful football coaches how to run their teams.

In June 2008, Conde Nast Portfolio reported that Shalala allegedly got multiple below-rate loans at Countrywide Financial because the corporation considered her a “FOA’s”–”Friends of Angelo” (Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo).

Forbes is calling for Shalala to fall on her sword. It’s really doubtful that she has a sword, being a feminist. I love college football but it’s getting harder to watch, knowing there is so much cheating going on. Allowing and encouraging it via “boosters” and others is sickening. Shalala, in her quest for a big seat at the top either didn’t have a sense of discernment when dealing with Shapiro or any of the coaches or players when she claimed to be so alert. Since she failed at that she should resign.

Symbols are important. In other circumstances, the Obamas’ vacation on Martha’s Vineyard might not be terribly relevant. But this is a president who blames his dead-parrot economy on “bad luck” — specifically, the Arab Spring and the Japanese tsunami: As Harry S. Truman would have said, the buck stops at that big hole in the ground that’s just opened up over in Japan. Let us take these whiny excuses at face value and accept for the sake of argument that Obama’s Recovery Summer would now be going gangbusters had not the Libyan rebels seized Benghazi and sent the economy into a tailspin. Did no one in the smartest administration in history think this might be the time for the president to share in some of the “bad luck” and forgo an ostentatious vacation in the exclusive playground of the rich? When you’re the presiding genius of the Brokest Nation in History, enjoying the lifestyle of the super-rich while allegedly in “public service” sends a strikingly Latin American message. Underlining the point, the president then decided to pass among his suffering people by touring small town Minnesota in an armored Canadian bus accompanied by a 40-car motorcade. In some of these one-stoplight burgs, the president’s escort had more vehicles than the municipality he was graciously blessing with his presence.

When I was a little girl my parents would take me to see my paternal great grandmother Emma Fletcher. She was an immaculate housekeeper so when we visited her we were allowed to snoop all over her house. My brothers and sister and I went into her dining room on our way to her fascinating kitchen and in passing would see Grandma’s hooked rugs. She never stopped working on her beautiful creations and had everything in her dining room set up as a display even though it was a work in progress.

We were intrigued with Grandma’s kitchen. Besides her pies tucked away safely in her old punched tin pie safe there always seemed to be something cooking in the oven. But it was the old ice box that fascinated us. My brother used to dare me to open the door to peak inside. There were always strange things that we never found inside the ice box at home. Things like pigs feet, ham hocks, and chitlins.

Our strolls through our great grandmother’s home were pretty good entertainment for us but one of my most striking memories is of the framed certificate that she had hanging in her bedroom above the framed photo of a young image of her husband, our great grandfather, who had died when I was five years old.

The certificate was from President Truman, an acknowledgment and thanks to my great grandfather for being the engineer who drove the train on one of the legs of President Truman’s whistle-stop campaign tour through the United States.

I was always in awe of my late great grandfather. I knew that he had been an engineer of the Frisco train and that he had told my father that he had put a million miles on the engine. Reading that certificate just put a little more burnish on the memory of the man who, in my last memory of him, had been cutting roses from his prized rose bushes and let me pick out my favorite rose.

President Truman (not an Ivy Leaguer but most certainly a buck stopper) engaged in a re-election campaign in 1948 that was “made in America”.

Truman’s 30,000 mile whistle stop train tour through the heartland of the United States was taken on the Ferdinand Magellan, the only car custom built for the President of the United States in the 20th century. Originally built in 1928 by the Pullman Company and officially the “U.S. No. 1 Presidential Railcar”, the Ferdinand Magellan is currently on display at the Gold Coast Railroad Museum in Miami, Florida.

But to undertake this feat, in each railroad region it took an engineer and an engine to power the railcar and it’s hard to imagine the U.S. Secret Service allowing that to happen in this day and time. It would take more than one massive train to carry the load of Obama advisers, aides, press handlers, political hacks, advance crew, mother-in-law, staff, cooks, hairdressers, dog-walkers, babysitters, golf-walkers, page-turners, and the like heading to Martha’s Vineyard.

And what a bummer for Obama! Now it appears that Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi has flown the coop for parts unknown. (perhaps Algeria) Chaos and euphoria are reigning in the streets of Tripoli and Obama must be terribly worried about his golf game plans for tomorrow. Should he make a statement right away or should he wait a few days to take credit?

Of course he stayed up north where things are a might bit friendlier for him.

So on to Martha’s Vineyard Obama goes for a ten day vacation. As far as I am concerned Obama does have a great plan to fix the economy as long as he stays there permanently and does nothing but golf and talk and golf and talk and golf and talk……………

What made my soul bleed was the fact that in the initial press reports an “unnamed official” confirmed that those who were killed were from Seal Team 6 and the 160th Avn. Bde., which is the special ops aviation unit. This “unnamed official” asked not to be named because the families had not yet been notified. I could just imagine the agony the families were in knowing that one of their own was most likely killed. In this email to Instapundit John Lucas explains his disgust at the Obama administration official’s callous attitude toward the military families who were waiting for that knock at the door.

I ache for those families - the Mothers, the Fathers, the Wives, and the children. Life will never be the same.

“I do not know the dignity of their birth, but I do know the glory of their death,” General MacArthur said in his West Point address in 1962, speaking of the fallen American soldier. “They died unquestioning, uncomplaining, with faith in their hearts, and on their lips the hope that we would go on to victory. Always for them Duty, Honor, Country. Always their blood and sweat and tears as we sought the way and the truth and the light.”

“However horrible the incidents of war may be,” MacArthur went on to say, “the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country, is the noblest development of mankind.”

Bad news all around. We’ve been attacked from without and from within. Our economy was downgraded this weekend which was not really surprising. Obama played the blame game today which was also not surprising given that the man either doesn’t have a clue how to lead or has planned this “change” all along.

America the Beautiful has been brought down low and how fortunate that Gov.Rick Perry was praying for her this weekend. We need bold leaders who are not afraid to stand up for their beliefs and we need prayer.

The historic city fit that description once again yesterday as the temperature hit 115 degrees, breaking all records for heat.

Fort Smith breaks all-time heat record, currently: 115 degrees. The hottest temperature since record keeping started in late 1800s.

Yes, we Hobbits, we tea drinkers, we American citizens, have been spending this summer trying to keep our homes and yards from catching on fire while we were calling our representatives and senators in D.C. pleading with them, reasoning with them, to restore fiscal sanity to our country.

While minding the stores, the homes and the schools, going to work day in and day out, Tea Partiers were still keeping a watch on the doings in D.C. and working the phones and the blogs, wiping the sweat from our brows as we watched the corrupt doings in Washington D.C. We saw the threats of default for what they were. As a result, we can recognize a Satan Sandwich when we see it.

The bumbling, Joe Biden blamed the results of the deal on the tea party and called conservative tea party members terrorists; Maureen Dowd tripped all over herself calling us cannibals, vampires and zombies; Martin Bashir of MSNBC had on an addiction expert, Dr. Stanton Peele, who proceeded to analyze the tea party as delusional and prone to violence. Tea Partiers want “to end life as we know it on this planet,” screeched Nancy Pelosi, even before the debt ceiling fiasco deal was sealed.

Democrats, if they haven’t already, surely must have gone over the bend, or on a bender.

Sarah Palin, wise woman that she is, might have said this during the Battle of the Bulge, “They’ve got us surrounded again, the poor bastards,” which in reality is a quote of General Creighton Abrams Jr.

What Sarah said in response to Biden is just as rich: “”If we were really domestic terrorists, shoot, President Obama would be wanting to pal around with us, wouldn’t he?”

Because we think spending is irresponsible and downright crazy we are called nuts!

Jonah Goldberg’s mild response to the calumnious remarks of the media liberals and democrats was most appropriate. It’s mild in comparison with their extreme remarks, that is. It also reminds me of World War ll, American Commander, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe who, when the Germans demanded that the Americans surrender Bastogne replied, “Nuts!” The Germans did not understand, so the Americans explained that “Nuts!” meant “go to Hell!” Jonah wrote, “Well, go to Hell. All of you.”

By the way, the Germans redoubled their efforts to destroy Bastogne and its “Besieged Bastards.” They did not succeed.

Hell on the Border in Arkansas is small change compared to the hellish deeds done by our so-called friends in Congress. Boehner and his fellow Republicans sat down with Reid, Pelosi, and Obama and signed a deal with them so our economy (supposedly) would not go into default. Obama won’t have to worry about paying the piper until after the 2012 election.

The economy is really on a roll now…..rolling right down to the bottom.

“It’s been a long, tough year. But we have made some incredible strides together. Yes, we have. But the thing we all have to remember is, as much good as we’ve done, precisely because the challenges were so daunting, precisely because we were inheriting so many challenges, that we’re not even halfway there yet,” he said.

A summer of severe drought and heat has kept shoppers home.The jobs situation is getting worse in Arkansas as it is in the rest of the country.

The long hot summer still has long to go. Hell has been on our nation’s southern border for quite some time. The White House and the Justice Department and the Operation Gunwalker scandal may be playing six degrees of Kevin Bacon.